In early 1996, Squaresoft released Treasure Conflix and three other exclusive titles for the Satellaview Broadcast Satellite system, an add-on for the Super Famicom. The soundtrack was written by longtime composer Junya Nakano. The game is an aerial combat and RPG hybrid where you split your time between fighting other airships in real time and traveling to small caves and towns to find upgrades for your airship. It remains untranslated but it isn’t some long lost classic; the gameplay is serviceable and it can be beaten in just under 2 hours.
The Satellaview games do mark an interesting period of experimentation for Squaresoft. They sit between the earlier success of landmark RPGs like Final Fantasy IV, VI and Chrono Trigger and before the transition into the PS1 generation with games like Final Fantasy VII and Parasite Eve. Some of you might recognize Square’s more notable Satellaview game Radical Dreamers which became the basis for Chrono Cross.
Composer and arranger Junya Nakano started his career at Konami in 1992. After that he moved on to Square from 1995-2009 and continues to work as a freelancer. As lead composer he’s written the music for Threads of Fate and Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. More frequently he’s been a co-composer and has worked on games like X-Men arcade and Tobal No. 1, as well as regular collaborations with Masashi Hamauzu on projects like Front Mission: Gun Hazard, Final Fantasy X, XIII, and the X/X-2 remasters.
Link
- Bandcamp
- Junya Nakano artist profile on VGMOnline
All tracks composed by Junya Nakano
Track List:
- 00:00 Title
- 05:40 Introduction
- 14:00 World Map
- 15:23 Battlefield
- 21:40 Town
- 26:58 Auction
- 28:30 Doom Triangle
- 31:40 Ending
- 35:00 Staff Roll
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:57 — 50.9MB)
This was a fun episode! Treasure Conflix definitely has that SNES Square vibe to its music. In fact I could almost imagine some of these tracks being unused songs from Chrono Trigger or some other late era SNES Square title, especially Doom Triangle. Also it’s funny that you mentioned that no one has fan translated this game because I first heard about Treasure Conflix because someone on Rom Hacking Dot Net was talking about translating the game many years ago. It never went anywhere but I guess it goes to show that, no matter how obscure, people are always going to be interested in translating any kind of Square title.
Hey Bowl of Lentils! Good to hear from you. Yea it’s one of those games that comes up from time to time but it’s hard to say when the project will get finished. I’d be curious to try it out if it does though. I’m glad we got to talk about Junya Nakano, since he’s not a composer I’m as familiar with. We linked his bandcamp in the episode notes but if we’d known about it before the recording we would have mentioned it in the show. It’s always nice to see when composers remain relatively active so many years after an early project.